A/N: Thank you to my beta horsesandpercabeth for editing this chapter, and my previous three chapters.

A/N 2: I'd like to thank all my long-term readers for sticking with me for as long as you have considering my eradicate update schedule. There was a long delay on this chapter update for so many reasons, but the one I am going to blame (because I live in denial about the many problems going on in my life) is that I've recently been spending a lot of time dedicated to Pokemon. I have three long term Pokemon stories on the go right now, and I am also currently transcribing the episodes because it's been a while since I've watched anything but the moves and my anima knowledge wasn't failing me.

A/N 3: This chapter, and hopefully the next chapter, are slightly longer than my 'Challenge of Words and Knowledge' set have been. I was thinking about going back and merging parts 1 & 2, and parts 3 &4 so that they come to similar word counters, however I like the idea of leaving my readers that time between the end of the chapter and the next chapter to work out the riddle and the satisfaction of knowing they got it right. Over the previous four chapters, I do not believe I have ever received such reader engagement before, I don't want to deprive future readers of that either – even if they do not choose to review. So, it's up to you my readers: Where you really annoyed by the short chapters and do you feel like I need to go back and double them up?

Chapter 58: Year Four: Challenge of Words and Knowledge P5

What moves before the sun but does not leave a shadow?

Having already faced riddles that had the answers of elements fire, earth, and water, it didn't take a large leap of cognition to determine that the most likely answer to her latest riddle was wind. Taking the wind in context, wind would be able to pass before the sun without leaving a shadow because it had no substance – no physical body to block the light.

Aileen sighed and gave the answer: "Wind." The door clicked open to reveal her new task.

Once she managed to get through to the other side, she would only have one other task and then she'd be out of these trials and free to go and have dinner with Sirius. Her godfather had promised to be waiting for her once she got out of the task, and he was taking her off school grounds. He wanted to get her away from people and all her responsibilities for just the one night, so he was taking advantage of a Lord Father/Regency of claimed Lord title to whisk her away before anyone could speak with her. Fred and George had been alerted to his plan, and were tasked with keeping people away until she was safely off school grounds.

Aileen didn't know if the headmaster had been informed of her godfather's plans, but she figured that it was Sirius' responsibility to tell him; if he didn't, she would smooth things over with the man when she returned in the morning. From the times he dropped in on the warders, he had known that Aileen was being overworked this year.

Glancing around the room, Aileen frowned slightly as she took in what she needed to do. The door to the last room was nearly forty feet above where she was standing, and the only way to get from where she was to the exit was by traversing a series of floating carpets. The carpets were going in different directions: up and down, left to right, diagonal and one enterprising carpet was going in circles.

So, in order to get to the other side, she needed to navigate her way across the void using carpets, but where does the wind come into it? She couldn't see any runes carved into the walls, and both the ceiling and floor were too far away for her to make anything out. In all the other rooms, the tasks had been powered using runes, but she couldn't determine if that was the case in this room. Aileen very much doubted that it was just jumping between carpets that made up the sum of this task – considering the relative difficulty of the other tasks, she expected this one to be harder, not easier.

Well, there was only one way to find out – take the first step.

After mentally plotting her route and working out the timings of the moving carpets, Aileen took the first jump with her wand ready. Her legs wobbled slightly on the loose structure of the floor, but she remained standing and the carpet held. Jumping to the next carpet was harder because she didn't have a solid resistance to push against. This meant she needed to calculate her next jump based on her reduced resistance and so would lower the height that she would gain when jumping.

She was three jumps in when a wind current started blowing through the room. At the level she was on, the wind was only enough to flick up and barely move her clothes, but from the sounds of the ruffling of the carpets and the howl, it got stronger the higher she went. Still, she could not see the runes which caused this wind. She was going to have to simply work through it and crouch low on the carpets to keep herself from being blown off. She would recalculate her jumps when she learnt how strong the wind was up high and maybe come up with a barrier solution if she wasn't able to resist the strong wind.

Two jumps later, and she was forced to make a hasty jump as the carpet gave out under her feet. A few test jumps later, and she's learnt that some of the carpets had been charmed to fail if she remained on them for more than three seconds, which meant she needed to jump quickly on all carpets because she didn't know which ones were charmed to fail.

She was three carpets down from the door when the wind started getting too tough and she was no longer able to counter the pull in order to get to the next carpet. Fortunately, the carpet she ended up crouched on was not one of the ones which was charmed to fail, so she had time to plan even if she was forced to hunker down against the push of the wind.

Aileen mentally plotted out a few ideas: using her own wind to counter the wind pushing her; using one of the other items within her bag in order to conjure barriers which she could hold and levitate to create a small barrier; changing the nature of the carpets to give herself more purchase to resist the wind; or creating an independent floating platform to take her up to the door. Instead of doing any of that, Aileen decided to fall back to what she had been doing for the entire task – using runes to circumnavigate the dangers she was faced with.

Since she had been jumping between carpets, Aileen had been able to determine that they were not being held up by runes – they were being held up by charms. This meant she could add her own runes to the carpets and then cancel the charms on them while simultaneously activating her own runes. It would be a tight window she would be operating in before she would start plummeting while being pushed around by the wind, but the runes only needed a second to power up enough to keep her weight stabilised, at which point she would need to add more power to move up against the wind.

Putting runes onto a soft, fabric surface was difficult unless she was stitching directly into the fabric, and she hadn't thought to pack a needle and thread. So, she needed to take a gamble and change the properties of the carpet while hoping that doing so didn't cancel out the charms on it. Raising herself up slightly in preparation to jump if she needed to, Aileen turned the carpet into granite – a lightweight material.

Breathing out in relief when the material under her stayed, Aileen pulled out her carving tool and got to work.

The runes of Fehu and Haegl were the base of her latest rune set – motion and wind. Once she had a few more stability runes in the set, she was ready. Placing her wand on her power rune, Aileen used her hand to cast the strongest cancellation spell she knew, which ended her transfiguration and the levitation spell. She fell three inches before she was able to put enough power into her runes to hold herself steady.

Gripping the corner of the carpet with her free hand and hooking her feet around the edge, Aileen tilted her wand forward slightly while still maintaining contact with the power rune. Slowly, she started moving.

Laughing in joy, Aileen flew through the wind tunnels that had been created, swerving around the carpets that were in her way and to the door. She hadn't ever thought about making her own flying carpet or broom before, since there was always that nagging feeling in the back of her mind reminding her that if she went too high, she would be killed. Flying on the carpet inside this artificial room meant she didn't have that threat hanging over her. No matter how short the journey, or the reason why, it had been fun.

With regret, Aileen landed her carpet and stepped up to the door where she was faced with what she hoped was her last riddle:

You can't see me during the day or when there is light but when it is night, I am always there. What am I?

Edited: 01/04/2021

Word count: 1,394